BBC, Artangel and Sadler’s Wells – Jonathan Glazer’s Strasbourg 1518, featuring Pina Bausch dancers
★★✰✰✰ Strasbourg 1518 has been lauded as ‘head buttingly confrontational’ and an original ‘dance for today’. It isn’t. Familiar Bausch tropes don’t really reflect 1518’s psychogenic mania, which was communal, or today’s experience of isolation, stress and tedium.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Giselle – London
★★★★✰ …exemplary performances from Momoko Hirata as Giselle and César Morales as Albrecht make for a richly rewarding and moving experience.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Seasons in our World, Peter and the Wolf – Cheltenham
★★★✰✰ Bintley feels strongly about tradition (much more so than most other directors) and the commissions are his way of saying what’s important and passing that baton on.
International Draft Works 2019 – Royal Opera House, London
★★★★✰ All ten pieces on show were strong, considered commissions, and more than half came from female choreographers – a heartening boost for this male-saturated field.
Celebrating the Birmingham Royal Ballet / Peter Wright Nutcracker at 25
Birmingham Royal Ballet have been celebrating the Silver Anniversary of Sir Peter Wright’s great Nutcracker production and the company’s move to Birmingham that same year.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Sylvia – Birmingham
David Bintley’s Sylvia is a great piece of classical dance and escapist fun.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Quatrain, Matryoshka, Beauty and the Beast pdd, Swan Lake pdq, Facade – High Wycombe
Ruth Brill’s Matryoshka showed a lot of sense and maturity I thought – she clearly thinks about entertaining the audience.
Ballet Black – To Fetch a Pail of Water?, Depouillement, Second Coming – London
All up, another win for Ballet Black – a strong double bill of consequence and contrast preceded by a short amuse-bouche.
Gallery – Ballet Black in Second Coming and To Fetch a Pail of Water?
Two brand new Ballet Black works, by Mark Bruce and Kit Holder, photographed by Dave Morgan…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – End of season promotions, leavers and joiners
BRB Promotions, Joiners and Leavers…
Ballet Central – 2014 Tour – London
Of all the school shows I most appreciate the one by Central School of Ballet. Their show, under the name Ballet Central, invariably has the widest range of dance, from ballet to contemporary to musical theatre and more. And importantly they tour it…
Birmingham Royal Ballet at IDFB 2014 – Quatrain, Kin., Façade – Birmingham
Choreographically Alexander Whitley’s ‘Kin.’ was probably the best new thing I’ve seen BRB premiere these last 4 years…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Three Short Works (with 2 premieres) – Birmingham
Good to see BRB presenting 2 premieres as part of International Dance Festival Birmingham… A good afternoon.
